Cybernethics / Cybernéthique

At a recent talk at BU about Consciousness, Steven Horst, a professor of philosophy at Wesleyan advanced an apparently well-known argument by Frank Jackson. The argument uses the thought experiment of a woman named Mary, kept in a controlled environment of black, white and grey, and at the same time made to know everything that the most advanced future (omni)science of the physical world can possibly tell her about the brain. Now, argues Frank, when she is made to see something red at last, she learns something new that could not be contained in such knowledge. And thus, concludes Horst with Frank, there is something beyond the physical world that is necessary for this experience to happen.

Of course this vulgar mystical argument is based on a typical confusion between object and representation -- the ultimate source of insanity according to Korzybski.

Take Swiss Cheese, the variety that comes with holes (technically known as eyes). There is a clear correlation between holes and cheese: the more cheese there is, the more holes there are. If you purchase twice as much cheese, you'll get a volume of holes twice as big. Since correlations are symmetrical, this also means the more holes there are, the more cheese there is. If you purchase enough cheese to double the volume of holes, then you have purchased twice as much cheese. Thus, a static mind satisfied with correlations may conclude that a good way to increase the total quantity of cheese is to increase the total volume of holes -- which may be achieved quite simply by drilling holes in the given supply of cheese. Of course, this means fails, because it changes the proportion of holes to cheese, whereas the measured correlation upon which the reasoning stands crucially depends on this proportion being a constant. Yet that's exactly how macroeconomic regulation by government works: find some existing correlation between some kind of wasteful government spending and a measure of general welfare, and then forcefully increase the spending in the hope to increase welfare...

Last month, I was thinking a lot about polyphasic sleep schedules. I didn't manage to discipline myself in such a schedule yet, and my feeble attempts only combined with procrastination into reducing my sleep time, to my ultimate psychological downfall. A more reasonable target will be to shoot for simple biphasic sleep, with a regular nap in the afternoon after a regular lunch: when at ENS, I met someone who did quite well this way, which is also the way it was done for all children in my kindergarten. When I manage that, it will be time to add more naps and do less sleep.

However, short sleep schedules have the power to bring more lucid dreaming. And with my reading about lucid dreaming, and my recurring disappointment since I was a kid at not being able to take notes in my dreams that I could leave to my waking self, I had this most interesting meta lucid dream.

In Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags, Clay Shirky clearly explains the issue of a posteriori knowledge versus a priori knowledge -- the essential theme of austrian economics and libertarian politics. However, in the end, he not only fails to conceptualize the issue, he also steps into the trap laid by relativists: he confuses reality with knowledge about reality (a clear case of insanity, as defined by general semantics), and implies that we create meaning rather than discover it.

The nuance is tiny, but as Aristotle said, the least deviation from truth will be multiplied later. Human creation of meaning entails that meaning is an arbitrary product of human will, and that any disputes arising from divergent opinions cannot be solved by reason but only by brute force. Discovery of meaning entails that meaning is objective, and that disputes can be resolved by reason and other peaceful means. Thus, what appears as a mere detail in something as fundamental as metaphysics and epistemology has dramatic consequences when you later study ethics and politics!

Of course, Clay doesn't explore the political consequences of this tiny detail in his essay. His mistake is benign, and I'm sure he himself would be prone to dampen the mistake rather than amplify it, if he were to be taken in a more political discussion. Still, by admitting such wrong premises, Clay abandons all possibility of arguing back against those people who preach Evil. If he's not doing a disservice to himself, he is doing one to his readers. He is both a victim and a disseminator of one of the fundamental memes by which Evil disarms good people.

Dans une discussion rationnelle, chacun explore la structure conceptuelle de l'autre -- mais aussi la sienne propre, qui restait souvent implicite jusqu'à être révélée par la confrontation. Cette structure est caractérisée par ses distinctions et ses identifications, c'est-à-dire par la façon dont on distingue ou identifie les situations en leur appliquant le même concept ou un concept différent. L'interlocuteur rationnel tente de comprendre ces distinctions et identifications, avant de pouvoir juger si oui ou non elles lui sont pertinentes -- c'est-à-dire propres à faciliter et améliorer le processus de décision et d'action humaines.

Flow with the Tao, and the Tao will flow with you.

An entrepreneur is a nose. In a world of uncertainty, he makes decisions, and assumes responsibility for his decisions. Where he sees opportunities that other people don't see or don't dare act upon, he commits his resources -- that begin with his own time --, and takes a risk.

Comment savoir que la terre est ronde? Il suffit de regarder l'horizon maritime. Si la terre était plate, on pourrait voir à l'infini. Si la terre était concave, il n'y aurait pas de ciel. Mais il y a un horizon, donc la terre est ronde. Quel est le rayon de la terre? On peut le mesurer soi-même comme le fit Érathostène, ou comme le firent ceux qui les premiers mesurèrent le mètre. Mais de telles mesures sont coûteuses; il n'est pas question de tout vérifier à chaque fois à partir de rien -- "rien" qui d'ailleurs se révèle vite un tout extrêmement sophistiqué. Aussi, à défaut de pouvoir "tout" vérifier soi-même, quel crédit accorder aux vérifications effectuées par d'autres des affirmations des uns?

Do you prefer X or Y?

Mu. The question is irrelevant to me, because it's not a choice I have or am ever likely to have.

OK, but what if you could make this choice?

How so?

For instance, imagine you had a magic wand that you could wave either way, to achieve either X or Y?

You mean a device possessing a great power capable of achieving either X or Y?

No it ain't. Bitch. Which is why leftists are very quick at denying reality in practice. And so as to deny even those realities that may be proved through praxeology, they go so far as to using relativism to deny reality in theory, too. Unhappily for them, reality isn't impressed by their denial, and keeps hitting them. This would be but a good laugh and a good riddance, if only they didn't try hard to take the other people down the hill together with them.

Mon camarade Sylvain Poirier, dans une interrogation métaphysique, ne conçoit pas que deux êtres différents puissent avoir le destin identique d'une mort physique suivie du même néant: comment pourrait-il y avoir un avenir identique [après la mort] à partir de vies différentes? Voilà qui m'inspire cette parabole.

Ideas matter. There are correct ideas, and wrong ideas. This is the agreement implicit in any sincere debate. Without this agreement, the content of any debate is irrelevant. (Of course, there are also social interactions where content doesn't matter -- but they are not debates, precisely.) Of course, the debate itself is only considered useful if there is a mismatch of knowledge between participants. If they think the same, they have nothing to learn but the fact that they think the same. And if they think differently, it means that at least one has something to teach to the other, that the other doesn't know, or currently disagrees with.

Sometimes I indulge in political discussion with socialists, and after a lot of heat, I realize that the discussion isn't going anywhere because each participant has a different base approach to thinking at all. Notably, I'm a "rational" (NT) on the MBTI, whereas most other people are not, and are thus not prone to being receptive at all to the rough logical reasoning that comes to me naturally. The most important thing to me is the truth of statements and logical rigor of arguments. That's why you see me insist on ideas being "correct" or "false", and nitpicking on what looks as boring details to you, yet are crucial turn to me. That's why you'll find blunt insulting or shocking things I'd see as concise and precise rational statements, whereas I'll find moronic or dishonest things that to you are obvious sincere casual statements. Because we have the same temperament. Now, I can't change you by mere wishful thinking. But I can improve myself by some strainous effort. So I've decided to improve.

Dear Roderick,

in your blog entry Are We All Consequentialists Now?, you argue against consequentialism. What a joke! Your opposition between consequences and principles is a false dichotomy. The objective world is one and does not depend on the point of view taken. When you consider things up to isomorphism, you realize that consequentialism is but the requirement that theories be logically coherent. Denying consequentialism is denying that logic applies in philosophical matters. Deontics and utilism (to reuse the term by Hazlitt instead of the over-ended "utilitarianism" -- but then why not usism?) are but different points of view, and can but coincide in their conclusions. As Bastiat would put it, there are Harmonies in Nature. These harmonies are but the correspondances between various points of view due to the fact that they all valid points of view but describe the very same underlying structure from various different angles. Any possible contradiction is but a mistake in whoever reaches an absurd conclusion, and not an indictment of the coherence of the universe. There is no contradiction in the universe. Let's leave philosophical dilemmas to absurdists.

Roderick replied:

So these halfwits say that rational people ought to be bayesian. Sure. But bayesian about just what? By imposing not the right a priori probability distribution (that will eventually be fixed by experience) but the right descriptional paradigm, the right "meta-context", memetic parasites can have even "bayesian" people believe a lot of nonsense; just propose as "independent" facts on which to be bayesians things that are not so independent after all -- by bombarding readers with systematically biased data to evaluate, you will easily tip their opinions toward the direction of your choice; and they don't even have to choose "right" rather than "wrong" -- they only have to accept your problematics, your choice of data to evaluate. That's where Solomonoff induction comes into play.

Ceci est une réponse à un message point-godwin reçu sur la mailing-list rationalistes-autrichiens, en réaction à une intervention aussi enflammée qu'argumentatoire dans laquelle je démontrais par l'exemple que toutes les règles de comportements ne se valent pas à un jeune relativiste qui niait le processus de découverte du Droit. J'y discute les notions de courtoisie, de règles de comportement, de tradition, d'innovation, de Droit, de Libéralisme, etc.

I am not a Libertarian. At least not in the sense argued against by Daniel C. Dennett in chapter 4 his book Freedom Evolves.

When you make a logical demonstration, some people agree to it, then dismiss it as being mere theory and do the opposite. But There is no such thing as mere theory. Theory matters. Theirs is but an epistemological fraud.

La méthode experimentale peut établir des faits expérimentaux. Mais elle ne peut jamais établir de loi ou d'explication rationnelle. Pire, valider une expérimentation en tant que telle dépend soi-même d'un bagage théorique qui fait appel à des théorisations qui n'ont rien d'expérimentales. Pour dire les choses sans jargon, les faits seuls sont muets; pour les faire parler, il faut une explication qui est de l'ordre non pas des faits, mais des lois qui relient les faits. (Sans parler que tout cela suppose qu'il y ait déjà un accord sur l'établissement des faits eux-mêmes.) Bref, affirmer que la science s'appuie sur la seule méthode expérimentale, c'est une imposture épistémologique. Certaines sciences utilisent voire requièrent la méthode expérimentale pour étudier leur sujet; mais cette méthode expérimentale ne saurait résumer à elle seule l'approche épistémique d'aucune science, pas plus qu'elle ne saurait caractériser aucunement la science en général.

La science, c'est le savoir partagé et partageable. La méthode épistémique pour relier les faits en lois explicatives, c'est l'induction. Affirmations de l'ordre de la définition, indiscutables. Ensuite, pour ce qui est d'étudier la nature et les propriétés du savoir partageable, on pourra voir un épistémologue des sciences (suggestions bienvenues: Popper? Carnap? Quine? Dennett?). Quant à la nature de l'induction, la chose a été remarquablement formalisée par Solomonoff.

With Dubya promising to spend zillions of dollars to send a few privileged civil servants to Mars, I am irresistibly reminded of this quote from one of my favorite books, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman (RIP) and Charles Weingartner:

Consider this: The first hole ever dug on the moon by a man-made machine is now done. It is the most expensive hole in the history of the human race. Now what does that mean? How do we know whether this is one of man's noblest achievements or if it is a game being played by a small group of lunatics for their own amusement -- at our expense?

Postman hits the nerve, he knows what questions to ask, what assumptions to question. But being a depraved leftist, he can provide no justifiable criterion to answer. Ayn Rand does, in her essay Collectivized Ethics, as included in her essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness. Too bad it's not on the web yet, but here's a purchase well worth it: concise, compelling, to the point. And no, I prefer not to retranslate to English the relevant excerpt back from the French translation on my laps.

When discussing epistemology, and particularly when disparaging Karl Popper as a half-wit (which still makes him waaaay ahead of the usual crowd of witless zeroes who are paraded as philosophers), I often like to tell about Solomonoff Induction, this compelling solution to the problem of induction. Popper believed such solution was impossible (and redefined "induction" so as to prove his point with Hume's argument), even though all humans (nay, mammals) had been showing him wrong for millenia, and though a formal solution had been hinted as Occam's Razor (tell me about Diogenes the Cynic's response to Zeno's Paradox).

Well, it so happens that Ray Solomonoff has written a nice historical account of his discovery (kudos to CiteSeer). Lots of reflective epistemological insight there -- and a lot of other great heroes who played a role in this story, including (surprise!?) a key contribution by the founders of LISP.

Of course, Solomonoff Induction is not meant to formalize exactly the way we either think or ought to think. Most importantly, it doesn't take into account the cost of thought, which limits the depth and precision of our probability computations. But that's not the point. The point is that we can formalize the way that induction is being done, and capture in an understandable way the essence of understanding -- and its limits, as Chaitin would no doubt remark.

PS: of course, there exist or can be invented infinitely many variants of Solomonoff Induction, that will take into account constraints on computation such as costs, reversibility, etc. These variants can help serve a variety of purposes, from modelling human learning processes to building machines that learn and otherwise mine data. But the details of these variants is secondary and comes naturally; the great discovery was in Solomonoff Induction.

Y a-t-il une vérité absolue? Un énoncé doit-il être ou vrai ou faux (ou dénué de sens)? Quel est le lien entre connaissance et réalité? Voilà des questions que je discutai récemment dans un débat avec Marc Grunert, un ami passionné comme moi d'épistémologie; et voilà une occasion d'évoquer cet exemple cher à mon cœur, celui de la couleur de mes chaussettes.

Papa, quand je vous parle de choses vraies, vous évacuez le sujet en demandant "qu'est-ce que la vérité?". Je crains, de par la façon rhétorique dont vous posez la question, qu'elle ne soit que capitulation de la pensée, renonciation à toute recherche, et soumission de fait aux autorités proclamées. Ce ne serait alors que relativisme. Pourtant, c'est cette même question qui m'a taraudé toute ma vie, et qui m'a poussé à étudier l'épistémologie, la vraie.

Si donc votre question procède d'une quête sincère plutôt que d'un reddition, alors je vous invite à lire le meilleur de l'épistémologie. Je peux vous conseiller de lire entre autre des oeuvres de Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Hans Herman Hoppe, François Guillaumat -- par exemple les textes disponibles chez Marc Grunert. Peut-être mes lecteurs pourront-ils vous conseiller d'autres lectures ou donner plus de précision. Et si vous vous intéressez sincèrement au sujet, je ne doute pas qu'un jour nous puissions discuter sérieusement de la partie 5 de mon essai.

By way of GNXP, here's a great speech by Michael Crichton about the intellectual fraud that is consensus science and any form of consensus being used as an argument in science.